Tears and Scotch
by ICanSeeYourFace
Summary: He raised his glass in the quiet room, whispering in a rough voice: "To Emily." Hardly had the words escaped his lips before they were followed by the first audible sob. Reid-centric oneshot with some Garcia thrown in. Spoilers for "Lauren".


**A/N**: Gaah, damn you Criminal Minds for taking over the creativity center in my brain! Reid makes it so easy for me to say yes to writing another oneshot about him. I hope you enjoy it.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Criminal Minds. If so, Lila would've returned for at least one more episode.

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><p><strong>Tears and Scotch<strong>

An Irish headstone reads, _"__Death leaves a heartache no one can heal."_

This was the first time in a long time Spencer Reid could recall he had cried. He rarely ever shed tears for anything. He would grieve, he would feel all the turmoil in the world, but it took something extreme to reduce him to tears. He didn't cry at Haley's funeral. He didn't cry when JJ left the team. He didn't cry over Nathan Harris.

Yet here he was, sunk down in his couch, a half-empty glass of scotch in one hand, crying like the Flood had been released in his soul. Emily was dead. She was not coming back. Death was final, inevitable; the only thing that could not be evaded or postponed, and Death had taken a dear friend this time. Not a person of interest in a case, not the former spouse of his superior. This was Emily. It was personal.

He had rushed out of the hospital, struggling for breath. The immediate sense of loss was overwhelming, beginning as a tightening in his chest and spreading like a suffocating blanket. Reid had vaguely heard Morgan and Garcia call out for him, but he didn't stop. He needed to breathe, to be alone. He got into his car and drove home in a daze. At the front door, his phone started ringing. He let it go to voicemail, but didn't turn his phone off. Instead, he put it on silent, knowing that if he'd turn it off, his friends were bound to come kicking down his door, even in the midst of this loss.

He left the phone on the small table by the door, along with his gun. He let out a shaky breath, leaning up against the wall. An enclosed, controlled space. It was all he needed. He secured the chain on the door and locked himself away from the world. Dejectedly, he unbuttoned his cardigan and the first two buttons of his dress shirt, loosened his tie, and let it fall to the floor with the cardigan. With determined steps, he walked over to the small liqour cabinet in his livingroom, taking out one of the two bottles in it. Single malt scotch, Lagavulin 1990 Distillers Edition. Rossi had given it to him for his last birthday. Reid knew his scotch, and this particular bottle had not come cheap.

Then again, this was no occasion for cheap liqour. He opened the bottle, fetched a whisky glass from the kitchen and poured himself a generous drink. He screwed on the cork and headed for the couch, holding the short stem of the glass between his fingers, and the bottle in the other. The smokey aroma of the amber liquid wafted up, teasing his nostrils. A small part of his mind made a note to thank Rossi for the generous gift again. Reid collapsed on the couch, the scotch sloshing dangerously against the edges of the glass, and put down the bottle on the table in front of him. How did it get to this? Emily, she... It felt like she only just became part of their family. Physics magic, maniacs, Georgia, poker, Colorado, the star puzzle, Florida (almost all of the times), mocking her high school yearbook photo, driving her insane with facts, confessing he had head aches.

Desperately, he tried to remember the last time they had talked, the last words they had spoken to each other. His mind, usually giving him the answers instantaneously, drew a big, black blank. He couldn't remember, couldn't conjure up the correct moment. There was seemingly nothing to pull from the mental archives. This pushed Reid over the edge, forced the tears to escape down his face, and he numbly blinked them away. Swirling the scotch, he took a sip, shuddering at the bitterish taste. Smokey, more so than any other scotch he had tried. He clenched his jaws together, forced himself to wait for the initial taste to dissipate. He closed his eyes, swallowed and breathed. There. A smooth, sweet smokey finish, a slight burn in his throat and a warmth that settled in his stomach. Tears still rolled down his cheeks, it was almost like he could taste the salty tears, mixed with the scotch. Tears and booze. Shouldn't those two only be combined in the instance of a bad breakup? Drinking the pain away until you passed out?

He shut his eyes tighter together and shook his head. No. Mental pain could not be medicated away. It didn't work. The temporary release only intensified the harsh return. It was cheating, and it always backfired. This time, he wouldn't escape, he didn't even feel the slightest need to. The tears were okay. He could cry, he told himself, taking another sip. Emily's toast. He would drink to her memory. A perfectly normal and valid social protocol. Grief and despair made okay in a sometimes so emotionally subdued culture. Reid raised his glass in the quiet room, whispering in a rough voice: "To Emily."

Hardly had the words escaped his lips before they were followed by the first audible sob. He almost dropped the glass; so foreign was the feeling of sobbing, of his body actually retching and shaking in an attempt to let out the feelings inside. He pulled up his knees, leaning his head against them and just let the sobs rip through him. This was a new kind of pain, in some ways worse than physical pain, more consuming than the pain of someone leaving you. Physical pain would cease, you could make it better with rather simple means. If someone left you, there was always the possibility they would come back. Utter and complete loss offered none of these amends. It couldn't be made better with some simple panacea. There was no chance of return. Loss was a deep black hole you fell into and never crawled out of.

Reid completely lost track of time. It passed him by, one gulp of scotch after the other. By now, whenever now was, his stomach felt as if there was a full on camp fire in it, blazing lazily. His head felt as if it was wrapped in a warm blanket, one that protected him from the outside world. The tears still streamed, the supply seemingly neverending. The violent sobs had subsided, and the only things that remained were odd sniffles and silent tears.

A rattling sound from the hallway momentarily shook him from the security of his hazy mind. A muffled voice seemed to call his name through the door. More rattling, a thudding sound, and then...

"Reid?"

There was someone trying to get in. Nobody but him had a key. But what burglar in their right mind would call his name, practically asking if he was home? Reid couldn't even come up with an example of a serial killer who used a similar ruse.

"Reid, I know you're in there. Your car is parked out front, so you're definitely here. Just, please, answer me so I can calm down and not throw a hissy fit out here."

"Garcia..?" he slurred, snapping out of the scotch-induced haven.

He rose from the couch, glass still in hand, and made a beeline for the door. It was open as far as the security chained allowed and he could see a face framed with blonde curls through the small crack (or rather, he saw several faces, but the rational part of his brain told him it was really only just one). Reid stopped next to the door, leaning against the wall with the hand holding the glass of scotch lazily hanging by his side.

"Why do you have keys to my apartment?" he asked as evenly as he could.

"I thought, you know..." Garcia began, but stopped abruptly. The silence was only momentary. "Spencer Reid, are you drunk?"

The way she said it, the challenging tone, like that of a mother, sounded hilarious to him, and he smirked.

"Oh, my God, I never thought I'd see the day..." Garcia mumbled, slightly in awe behind the door.

"For all the times you and... and..." Reid began, but then it all came crashing down. Garcia and Emily had always nagged that he needed to tag along when they would go for a drink after wrapping up a case. They said... had said they asked because they wanted him to be part of the gang, but Reid had guessed they only asked because they wanted to get him drunk.

He sunk down on the floor, fresh tears swelling in the corner of his eyes.

"She's gone, Garcia," he whispered shakily, circling the edges of the glass with his fingers.

"Oh, Spencer..." Garcia sighed, and she too sank down on the other side of the door. She wiggled her hand in through the open crack, offering it for him to hold.

He gratefully took it in his, and they sat there, holding hands and not saying anything. What was there to say that could be sufficiently expressed with words? Seconds, minutes, moments ticked by, and Garcia would occasionally squeeze his hand to let him know she was still there. He thought he heard her cry. "_And then, there were two,"_ he thought to himself.

"What are you drinking?" she asked him a while later, and her voice was thick with emotion.

"Scotch," he replied flatly, looking at the glass. There were still a few sips left in it.

"Will you share?"

He let go of her hand, shifted the glass from his left to his right, and carefully jammed it through the crack. She pulled out her hand, and took the glass from him. He peeked out and saw her, glasses pushed up, mascara trails on her cheeks, take a big gulp of scotch. Reid wanted to tell her that you just don't down scotch like that, that it would only...

"Holy crap, this is horrible!" she coughed, putting her other hand in front of her mouth.

"It's scotch," he deadpanned. "Eleven-year-old, extremely smokey scotch."

"Yeah, tastes like charcoal and acid. God, how much have you had of this?"

He leaned forward, looking towards the livingroom, where the bottle still stood on the table. He raised his eyebrows when he saw how much he'd had.

"Apparantly, about a quarter of a bottle. You never told me why you have a key to my place."

"I may or may not have made copies of the keys to each one of your homes... Just to know that if something happens, I can be there. It's not that I'm a crazy stalker-person, I just... feel safer when I know you're all safe, and having a key means I can make sure you're safe," Garcia mumbled, pushing the glass back to him. "I... I never suspected..."

She trailed off, a sniff escaping her, and she quickly pulled out a handkerchief and patted under her eyes. Reid nodded knowingly. No one could've possibly suspected this.

"God, I should so totally take advantage of the fact that you're drunk, boy wonder, but... I just can't."

"I consider myself lucky," he answered her and tried to sound like he meant it.

They sat quiet for a few minutes, Reid sipping his scotch, Garcia fiddling with the yellow necklace and bracelet.

"I think..." Garcia began subduedly. "I think this is one of those day, you know?" Reid didn't answer. "It's one of those days when bad things happen... and... and there is nothing you can do about it. It's a day without happy endings, when everything ends in tears, you know?"

Reid nodded in reply. A day when everything ends in tears.

_"And scotch,"_ he added quietly to himself, finishing off his drink.

He blinked away the last few tears, and closed his eyes, finding the pain to be a little less grating on his soul.

Author Charles Dickens wrote, _"Never be ashamed of crying. Because caring enough to ___cry___ means you have a heart."_

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><p><strong>AN**: I would be more than thrilled if you, dear reader, would review, since this is only my second attempt at writing CM. And just so you guys know: everything I know about scotch I have learned from my trusted friend Google. Feel free to correct me, because really, I know jack about scotch (other than it smells like ass).


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